Mindfulness

The word “mindfulness” has a long tradition and a specific meaning. It stands for the nonjudgmental observation and acknowledgment of our thoughts.

We notice the thought—for example, “I am running from my writing”—and acknowledge that we had the thought. The thought comes, we notice it, and it goes.

The central goal of ordinary mindfulness is to let such thoughts come and go without experiencing pain, without holding onto them, and without turning them into monsters that eat us alive.

Traditional mindfulness is an excellent practice. Current studies prove conclusively that a mindfulness meditation practice improves your health and your sense of wellbeing.

If you school yourself in even this limited practice, you will have done wonders for your equanimity. However you won’t be fully awake, fully functioning, or ready to create.

You will have taken a first enormous step and arrived at a place of fearlessly looking at and accepting the contents of your thoughts—but more is needed.

It is excellent to know that you are thinking, “I am running from my writing” and to experience that thought without sinking into pain and despair.

But observing that thought without pain or judgment is not the same thing as resuming your writing.

The goal of a creative mindfulness practice—the kind of practice that you really want—is not only the nonjudgmental observation of your thoughts but complete right thinking that leads to authenticity, creativity, and mental health.

The central goal of traditional mindfulness is that when you eat a potato, you really eat that potato.

The goal of creative mindfulness is that when you eat that potato, you really eat that potato and you also internally work on your novel or your symphony.

More important than being present for your potato is mindfully planning, as you eat your spud, principled actions like freeing political prisoners, ending a war, or improving the plot of your screenplay.

Here are two descriptions of traditional mindfulness.

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally. This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance of present-moment reality. It wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments.

"If we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and transformation.”

-- Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn

“While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. At first glance that might seem a little silly. Why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that’s precisely the point.

"The fact that I am standing there and washing these bowls is a wondrous reality. I am completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions. There’s no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves.”

-- The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh

The high ideal of creative mindfulness is to master ordinary mindfulness, in the sense in which Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Nhat Hanh, and others have described it, and to employ that mastery in the service of deep thought, rich action, and wide-awake living.

Here are the six principles of creative mindfulness:

1. Fearlessly observe your thoughts. All of your excuses, all the ways you unhinge yourself, all of your dodges, all of your secret complaints and sources of pain, are right there in the thoughts you are thinking. Awaken to the knowledge of your own thoughts.

2. Detach from the thoughts you are thinking. This means that you confidently observe each thought with a certain curiosity, sanguine assurance, and philosophical distance. What you are detaching from is the pain, sting, or charge attached to your thoughts. Then you can tolerate a thought like “I am fleeing from my writing” long enough to deal with it productively.

3. Appraise your thoughts. You are not judgmental but you are a wise judge. When you hear yourself think “I am fleeing from my writing,” you do not excoriate yourself; rather, you stop to appraise the truth or falsity of that thought, make sense of its implications, and decide what you want to do in light of your appraisal. That is, you stop and think.

4. Restate your intentions based on your latest appraisal. If, after thinking about it, you decide that you do not want to run from your novel, think the new thought that aligns with that intention. The new thought might be, “I think I’ll stop running right now.” In this way you respond to your thoughts with new understanding and new commitment.

5. Free your neurons, empty your mind, and ready yourself for creating. Ordinary mindfulness is the observation of thought. Creative mindfulness requires that you vanish, your mind hushed, so that your creative thoughts can appear. Open to an ever-deepening silence that is pregnant with your coming creative work.

6. Explode into your creative work.

The day will come when fewer painful thoughts plague you because you have turned your life around through the practice of creative mindfulness.

But there will never come a time when your thinking won’t produce some amount of pain, difficulty, anxiety, doubt, and despair. Therefore you will need to constantly attend to your creative mindfulness practice.

Eric Maisel, Ph.D. holds Master's degrees in Creative Writing and Counseling, and a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology. He is a California licensed marriage and family therapist, a creativity coach and trainer of creativity coaches, and teaches through lectures, workshops, and teleseminars.

Dr. Maisel is widely regarded as America's foremost creativity coach and has taught thousands of creative and performing artists how to incorporate Ten Zen Second mindfulness techniques into their creativity practice. See his site EricMaisel.com for ebooks and more information on his work.

Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is the author of more than thirty books - some titles at right >